Your Scar
by Literary Bitca
Summary: "You've asked me to tell you my secrets; tonight you're getting all of them. Stay, so I can finish this... Please stay." Later chapters get progressively denser with Reddington backstory, and Chapter 4 is full-blown Lizzington. ;)
1. Chapter 1

Your Scar

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of the Blacklist, and I do not make any money from this.

Author's note: Those who have read my stories before know my MO: I like to write slightly angsty stuff, with some suggestive bits, but I never delve into the actual "good stuff". My apologies, if that's what you've been looking for so far. This one is no exception. Stay tuned for less unlikely-situation fluff (cuz, WARNING: that's what this is) and more substance in Chapter 2. Chapter 1 is just… something I wanted to write.

Chapter 1

…..:::::

Liz grabbed the USB drive and shoved it in the pocket of her pants as she dashed out the door of the apartment. She was seriously regretting her decision to let Red talk her into this.

She knew they needed the information; she knew Pyke was a Bad Guy who needed to be stopped. But when the FBI came up against a legal wall in pursuing him, Liz was torn. She still wanted to think of herself as a Good Guy, and to do that she felt like she needed to abide by at least _some_ of the rules. At least_ most_ of the time.

But in this particular case, when Red had come to her with a way to get what they needed before Pyke left the country, and with _no _other available legal options, she decided to let herself be talked into the plan.

The plan which included breaking and entering, theft, and what amounted to international espionage.

The plan which—up until two minutes ago—had been going perfectly. Dressed in black pants and a dark zip-up hoodie that shadowed her face, she'd let herself into the apartment at the address Red had given her. He'd stayed on the street, several doors down, while Dembe took the car around the block. She'd found the files she needed on a laptop and copied them onto the USB drive before noticing the desktop computer to her left had a webcam attached to the top of the monitor. A webcam with a steadily blinking red light.

Someone, somewhere, had seen everything she'd just done.

She grabbed the USB drive and raced to the door of the apartment, yanking it open and flying down the stairs. As she hit the first landing, she collided with a man heading quickly up the stairs, a gun in his right hand. She slammed her shoulder into him as hard as she could, propelling him back against the banister. He dropped his gun, which clattered over the edge and fell out of sight. He leaned down and grabbed a knife from his ankle, and slashed up at Liz as he stood, pushing her back off of him. With a cry, she looked down at her right hand, where blood ran from her palm. She drew the arm back, and rammed forward with her elbow, landing a solid blow on his nose, which Liz assumed she broke, considering the satisfying crunch it made, and the amount of blood that followed. He staggered back, losing his balance on the landing and tumbling backwards down the stairs to the second landing below. He groaned, and rolled onto his side as Liz ran down the stairs and leapt over him, continuing to the large glass front doors of the building.

She burst out onto the street and began sprinting down the sidewalk in the direction she knew Red was waiting for her, scanning the street for Dembe and the car.

Four buildings down, Red stepped from the shadows, startling Liz. "Red!" she hissed, skidding to a stop. "There was a camera. I didn't turn any lights on, I don't think they saw my face, but I ran in to a guy on the stairs, they know I was there, they're _coming_—"

Red gave a quick look up and down the street.

"Dembe—" Liz started.

"Won't be back in time," Red interrupted, grabbing her arm and dragging her another fifteen feet down the street to the next alley. As they rounded the corner, they heard a door slam up the street. Liz ran down the short alley, horrified to find it was a dead end. Red tried the only two doors that lead into the buildings on either side of them, but found both locked.

"Dammit, Red, there's no place to hide down here!" Liz whispered harshly. "Even the dumpster's locked!" she said, pointing at the padlock keeping them from hiding inside the only other object in the blind alley. Crouching behind it would do no good, either, as it wasn't big enough to hide both of them, and anyone searching the street would surely walk a few steps into the alley to look behind it anyway.

Red swore under his breath and looked back toward the street they'd come from. They could hear the shouts of men along the street. The man Liz had encountered on the stairs obviously had friends now.

Red directed his attention back to Liz, looking her up and down, and quickly strode over to where she stood. He had such a determined look on his face that as he neared her, Liz retreated backwards, confused at his intent. Red reached out and pushed the hood off of Liz's head, and grabbing the front of the garment, he unzipped it quickly and roughly dragged it off her shoulders to reveal a white shirt. He tossed the hoodie to the ground behind the dumpster.

"Red—" Liz protested in shock.

Reddington continued to advance, driving Liz back up against the brick side of the building next to the dumpster. The massive metal bin blocked them from the chest down, but their heads and shoulders were still clearly visible to anyone looking down the alleyway.

Liz held her breath as Red stopped within an inch of her, incredibly close but still no part of him touching her. She searched his face for an explanation, and was rewarded when Red murmured in a low voice, "They haven't seen me yet; they're looking for a woman dressed in black, _alone_." Red leaned his left forearm against the building and canted his head to that side as if he were kissing her, effectively blocking her face from view.

Liz fought the instinct to tilt her head in the opposite direction as Red, to match the posture usually reserved for a kiss. Why did that impulse feel so obvious? She understood the theories of behavior in this instance: humans instinctively take a hand offered to them to shake, because it's a learned behavior, and isn't a threat to their safety. But mirroring someone's posture when it comes to love or sex takes a much more complex emotional foundation between the two people. She'd reacted reflexively like that when Tom moved to kiss her, but Tom had been her husband, and Red was… not.

Liz swallowed. She stayed stock-still and attempted to keep her breathing regular. But even as she succeeded in holding her head still, her breathing quickened, and her eyes dropped to Red's mouth. Realizing the impression that gave, she dragged her gaze back up to study Red's expression. His face was impassive, his eyes cast down to the curve of her neck, but his lips were parted, and she could see his breaths were coming somewhat faster than normal as well.

_It's because of the adrenaline of the chase; the threat of being caught by Pyke's men,_ Liz reasoned. _That's why he's breathing heavily. _She shut her eyes and shook her head slightly, correcting herself._ That's why we're *both* breathing heavily._

Liz heard movement at the mouth of the alley, and her eyes flicked open toward the sound, looking past Red's face. The backlit shadow of a man rounded the corner and stopped when he saw them. Liz started to say something, but just as she did, Red's right hand closed over her mouth, and he moved his lips to her ear to whisper quietly, "Shhhhh…." Red dropped his head, as if he were kissing her neck, and Liz felt the warmth of his breath across her skin. She tried to concentrate on the approaching danger, and _not_ the way Red's proximity made her—

"Hey!" the man called down the alley.

Liz's stomach dropped. There was no way to hide now that they'd been seen, and the man was sure to approach them. Pinned against the wall as she was, she had no hope of surprising the man and relieving him of the weapon he undoubtedly had.

Liz grabbed Red's hand to pull it away from her mouth, but he was already moving it to her shoulder. "_Kneel_," he breathed in her ear before he pressed her to the ground in front of him. Liz dropped to one knee, out of sight behind the dumpster. From this position she couldn't be seen, but she also couldn't _see_.

"Hey! You! You seen a woman around here?"

"Just this one," Red said, pointing down at where Liz knelt. She looked up at him, watched him casually lean an elbow on the edge of the dumpster while he answered the man's question. His other hand moved in front of her face, a single finger held up: _Wait a moment. Don't move._

The man seemed to falter, somewhat embarrassed by the situation. "Well…did you see anyone else come down here?"

"Does it look like I chose this alley because there were a lot of people in it?" Red sighed in frustration. "Listen, it's not like this girl is expensive, but I _am _paying for this, and right now I have to say: you're ruining it." Red looked back down at Liz, as if dismissing the other man.

Liz held Red's gaze for what seemed like an age, but in actuality was mere seconds. There was no sound indicating the man had moved away from them. Liz tried to determine how quickly she could shove forward and shoot around the corner of the dumpster. But what if this wasn't the same man from the building? What if this one wasn't armed? Could she take the chance of identifying herself and demanding he drop any weapon he had? Not without leaving Red completely uncovered. Not breaking eye contact with the man standing above her, she raised her eyebrows, asking silently if she should proceed, and reached to her hip for her gun.

Seeing her movement, Red's eyes slipped closed and he let out a low groan. "Listen, if you want some time with her, come back in fifteen," Red began to pant. "She'll be available then."

The man grimaced, apparently satisfied he wasn't going to find any additional information in this particular alley. "No thanks." He stepped back, regarding Red with some disdain. "You enjoy."

"I plan to," Red said with a touch of bravado, waving his left hand as if shooing away a bothersome fly.

The man turned and jogged back to the street as Red leaned forward again to brace his left hand against the building above Liz. His eyes were still closed, and he was breathing heavily, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. Liz felt a burn in her chest, and suddenly felt as if continuing to watch his face was too intrusive. She swallowed hard and looked down at the ground, her cheeks flushed and the pounding of her heart seeming to echo in her ears.

When she felt she couldn't bear it any longer, Liz moved to stand, but Red placed a firm hand on the top of her head, forcing her back down. She lost some of her balance, and to avoid pitching into the dumpster to her right, her hand shot out to steady herself, catching his thigh. She felt him jump slightly, but he didn't remove his hand from her head. She stayed crouched, shifting slightly, her ankle complaining about the position she held. Once she felt stable again, she slowly lifted her palm from Red's leg, and braced her fingertips on the wet ground of the alley.

Liz heard a car pull up to the entrance of the alleyway, and a shout. "Hey! Did you check down here?"

"Yeah," came the distant reply. "Just a guy with a hooker."

"What did she look like?"

"Dunno. Dark hair, wearing white."

"Chick who broke my nose's in black. Let's go. She must have gone into one of the other brownstones, but God only knows which one. There's no finding her now. Come on."

Liz continued to kneel, studying the ground. After another long moment, she heard car doors slam, and the car sped away. Liz felt the pressure of Red's hand lift from her head, and she watched as his expensive shoes took several slow steps back from her.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. When Liz finally lifted her gaze from the ground to Red's face, she found him across the width of the alleyway, staring down at where she crouched in the shadows of the dumpster with a mix of apprehension and apology, as if he were waiting for her to read him the riot act.

Liz remained with one knee on the ground, staring up at Red. She opened her mouth, trying to find the words to… _what? Thank him for thinking fast enough to get her out of a possibly no-win scenario fight? Apologize for...? For what?_ Liz felt like she'd intruded somehow, but couldn't begin to come up with a good way to address the situation.

The soft sound of vibration interrupted Liz's attempts at speech, and Red reached into his jacket and withdrew his cell phone, bringing it to his ear without looking away from Liz. He listened for a moment, then replied, "Yes. The alley four buildings south." He hung up and replaced the phone, his eyes still locked intently with hers. He tilted his head and pursed his lips.

If Liz was honest, she _hated_ when he looked at her with this intensity. Like she was all that mattered in his world, and yet he was still filled with immeasurable sadness. It made her chest ache, and she dismissed the thoughts that sprang to the front of her mind.

"Red, I—"

"Dembe's here," he interrupted as a black car pulled up to the mouth of the alley. He walked back toward Liz, offering her a hand to help her up. When she didn't take it, Red finally broke eye contact to glance down at her hoodie. "That's probably ruined, but we should dump it elsewhere in case they recheck the alley."

Liz nodded and twisted sideways to grab the black fabric with her left hand. The garment was covered in something slimy and she grimaced. "Uggh." She pushed herself to a standing position and walked to the car with Red. He opened the door and gestured for her to get in first. She did, trying not to touch the leather as she scooted across the backseat, giving Red room to sit. As soon as the door shut the car began to move, and Red reached into the front seat to empty the contents of the paper bag that sat next to Dembe onto the passenger seat, and offered the open, empty bag to Liz for her ruined hoodie.

"Thank you," she said quietly, dropping it into the bag, which Red folded closed and returned to the front seat.

As Red sat back, his eyes dropped to his pant leg, which now sported a red hand print from where Liz had steadied herself in the alley. Looking up at Liz with concern, he grabbed her right hand and peeled open her fingers, revealing an angry new gash running through her scar. "You didn't tell me you were hurt," he said harshly.

"It wasn't really relevant," Liz replied defensively. "What were you going to do about it? Besides, it's not like he got an artery—I'll live." She took a moment to study the hand Red still held, and crinkled her nose, thinking about the grime she had just been crouched in. "Though that alley was pretty dirty. Dembe? Can you drop me off at the nearest ER? This needs to be washed out, and I think I'm going to need a few stitches."

"No," Red said sharply. "Head back to the hotel, Dembe, and get Rosa Heredia on the phone; have her meet us there."

"That's not necessary," Liz started.

"If you'd been cut anywhere else, Lizzie, no. It wouldn't be necessary." Red tilted his head and gave Liz a sad smile. "But you decided to go and slice open your scar. So we're going to my hotel, Rosa is going to clean this up, and you and I… are going to have to have a discussion."

…..:::::

By way of an explanation: if any of you have seen the movie Secretary, I was amazed at one scene in particular (no spoilers) that involved almost zero physical contact, but was still incredibly suggestive. Well, okay, frankly graphic. Anyway, this was an exercise in trying to find that balance; my apologies if it just turned out awkward. :/ I've written and rewritten it so many times at this point that I honestly can't tell.

One more chapter, people! And it will have actual discussion and canon-related storyline substance, I promise. Please stop to comment and review before you leave the page! Compliments and constructive criticism are always welcome, and trolls will be petted and probably ignored. ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Your Scar

Disclaimer: I do not own The Blacklist characters, and I don't make any money off of this.

Chapter 2

…..:::::

Reddington unlocked the door to his suite, and held it open for Liz. She walked past him, into the main room, and stood, the handkerchief he'd given her pressed firmly against her right wrist.

"Sit, Lizzie. Rosa will be here shortly. Can I get you something to drink…?" he offered as he laid his hat on the console table near the door, and shrugged off his coat.

"No, thank you." Liz sat on one end of the large couch, her elbows leaned forward on her knees to avoid accidentally touching the light upholstery. She let out a breath as her eyes followed Reddington's progress as he walked across to the bedroom, loosening his tie and pulling it off as he went. "You said in the car we needed to talk. Talk about what?"

A knock at the door saved Red from answering. "That will be Rosa," he said, disappearing around the corner into the bedroom. "Do me a favor and get the door, would you?" he called from somewhere out of sight. Liz heard water begin to run in a sink.

With a tired groan, Liz rose and glanced through the peephole before opening the door and ushering Red's personal, on-call medical professional into the suite. Setting a small duffel bag down on the formal dining table, Rosa waved Liz into a chair, and set to work.

In the bathroom, Red stood, leaning over the running water, his hands flat on the vanity on either side of the sink. His eyes were closed in frustration, and with a huffed breath, he shook his head as if answering a question that hadn't been posed out loud. He opened his eyes, cupped his hands, and splashed the cold water over his face, not caring that some ran down inside the collar of his shirt. He wet his hands again and straightened up, running his palms back over his short hair, from his brow to the base of the back of his head, where he knitted his fingers together as if he were kneeling in surrender. He stayed like this, bathed in the soft light of the single fixture over the mirror, standing still as a statue, his head bowed forward, chin on his chest, hands behind his head, eyes closed, the water still running uselessly in the sink.

In the main room, after a quick injection that Liz hadn't cared for (she wrinkled her nose and looked away as the local anesthetic needle was placed), Rosa had set Liz's injured hand in a large plastic tub, and began cleaning the area, her green-gloved hands moving quickly from hemostat, to saline flush, to what looked to Liz like very small and precise tweezers.

"I really don't think you have to be this meticulous," Liz finally said, after watching Rosa inspect the laceration for several minutes. "I don't think I got any debris in there, if that's what you're looking for."

Red reappeared in the doorway, his shirt sleeves rolled up and top button undone. "She's not looking for debris, Lizzie," he said, leaning against the door frame. Liz noted the drying, but still visible wet spots on Red's unbuttoned shirt collar, and a few on his vest.

At that moment, Rosa gave a satisfied smile and withdrew her hemostat, a small, dark object held aloft between its jaws. She grabbed a plastic specimen bag and dropped the item into it, pressing the mouth closed to seal it. She twisted around and offered it to Red, who took it and held it up to the light, examining it.

"What _is_ that?" Liz asked, confused, wishing she wasn't anchored to her position at the table.

"Foreign body removals can be _so satisfying_," Rosa commented, "or horribly frustrating. They either take five minutes, or you're in there searching for two hours."

"Well, I'm glad this one wasn't the latter," Red said, still squinting at the object in the bag. Finally he set the specimen down on the table and smiled at Rosa as he took a seat across from Liz. "Thank you, my dear. I appreciate that this was short notice tonight."

"As always, it's my pleasure, Raymond. Give me two more minutes, I'll have these stitches finished up, and I'll be on my way." Rosa was already working with a small, curved needle, leaning intently over Liz's arm.

"Red? What _is that_?" Liz repeated firmly, staring at the specimen bag on the table, more than an arm's length away from her, out of reach.

"As I told you on the way here, Lizzie, Rosa is going to clean you up, and _then_ we are going to have a discussion. And hold still. Though I suppose her fine suture skills are lost on your wrist, considering the existing scar."

"You just took something out of my wrist," Liz's voice took on a dangerous edge. "Something you knew was there. Something I did_ not_ know was there."

Rosa clipped the end of the suture off with a small set of scissors and began wrapping a roll of white gauze around Liz's hand and wrist. She scooped her dirty instruments into the plastic tub and removed her gloves.

"_Reddington_," Liz threatened, "_What. Is. That_."

"Rosa, Dembe is waiting for you downstairs. Would you mind showing yourself out?" Red held Liz's angry gaze while Rosa collected her things into her duffel. She touched Red's shoulder briefly as a goodbye as she left.

Once the door clicked closed, Red looked down at his hands, spread out on the table in front of him, and sighed. "I've always said you would be in great danger if I told you everything I knew about your past."

Liz kept her face hard and still, waiting for Red to continue. He tapped a finger absently on the smooth surface of the table, and frowned, shaking his head as if he were at a loss for words. Finally, he took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to Liz's.

"The chip removed from your wrist tonight is simultaneously the most dangerous and the most valuable object I own."

…..:::::

I know, this was super short, but the next chapter should be coming out quickly, because it's already written. I'm just beta-ing it at this point. :) Soon! Maybe even tomorrow night! But a word of forewarning: it got SUPER dense with Reddington and Liz backstory that I didn't realize I could flesh out this much. There's probably going to be four chapters, not the original two I predicted. This beast has a life of its own at this point.

To the readers with a medical background: I know I glossed over the foreign body removal and suture closure. The details weren't important, and I didn't have enough filler dialogue to cover how long that stuff would realistically take. I'm fully embracing my right to write fake medicine stuff, because this is a fanfic, and not an op report. (It felt delightfully naughty to consciously get it wrong!)

Please leave reviews and comments before you move on, and thank you for reading! :)


	3. Chapter 3

Your Scar

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of The Blacklist, and I do not make any money off of this.

Author's note: This chapter gets dense with backstory and exposition. I hope it's not too much. I'm actually hoping it reads more like flourless chocolate cake: rich with content, and almost too dense to be enjoyable. ...ALMOST. *_crosses fingers and hopes that's the way it reads_* ;) And a MAJOR thank you to jadenanne7 for agreeing on very little notice to beta for me! You're awesome! I really appreciated the second set of eyes on this. :)

Chapter 3

…..:::::

Reddington took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to Liz's. "The chip removed from your wrist tonight is simultaneously the most dangerous and the most valuable object I own."

"_You_ own?" Liz repeated with venom, her voice rising. "I'm sorry, but it was just removed from _my_ wrist. I don't even know how long it's been in there! I have no memory of it being—"

"I put it there when you were a child," Reddington interrupted quietly.

Liz exhaled sharply, glaring at the man sitting across from her with something akin to horror.

Nothing was said for a long, agonizing moment until Red swallowed and held his hands up defensively, palms toward her, silently requesting Liz give him the chance to explain. "The beginning of this story takes us back to when I was a much younger man. Before you were even born. You've asked me many times to tell you why I picked you; why you're special. I'm offering that story tonight, but I need you to listen carefully, and to trust that what I'm telling you is the truth." Red raised his eyebrows. "I may have kept things from you, Lizzie, but do you believe me when I say I've never lied to you?"

Liz's mind was reeling. The adrenaline surge and inherent tension from kneeling in front of Reddington in the alley earlier that evening… the shock of learning she'd been a human lock box for an object for years without her knowledge… followed immediately by the revelation that Raymond Reddington had been the one who hid it—_inside her body_—and that he'd known her since she was a child…

"I'm listening," was all she managed.

Red nodded, understanding he was asking a lot of her tonight, with little warning. "As a young man I was recruited into one of the units in the Navy that had an innocuous cover identity. On all official documents, as far as the majority of the US government and even the Navy itself was concerned, we were just another unit. Anyone looking for background or information on any of us would find a good man with a promising career and nothing more. Nothing special.

"In fact, we worked for an incredibly covert government-run organization. And when I say government, I mean multiple governments: the French supplied members of the team, so did the Chinese… No one knew about us save for a select few in each country, and none of them even had the full story. There were levels of handlers that created a shadowy film of plausible deniability between those issuing the orders and those carrying them out. My government never knew that I was the instrument they were wielding. They simply knew that what they needed done… was handled."

Liz let out a long breath she'd been holding. She watched Red with a guarded, suspicious expression, trying to remember his vow that he did not to lie to her. "And this unit?" she asked quietly. "What was your purpose?"

Red licked his lips and opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, pursing his lips and mentally rewording his next statement. "We were created to be… a highly trained, international, totally transparent group of… assassins, to put it bluntly," he said, pushing back from the table and walking to the cabinet that he knew held several bottles of wine. He picked one up without pausing to check the label, and grabbed the opener and a single, long-stemmed glass in his other hand before swinging the cabinet door shut and returning to his seat at the table. Liz hadn't asked for a glass, and Red didn't offer.

"We were trained to deploy to a location, ingrain ourselves into local culture, and await assassination orders for—" the cork made a satisfying sound as the bottle relinquished it, "—high value targets that weren't officially sanctioned for assassination." Red poured himself a generous glass and took a long swallow. "I'd been with the unit for almost ten years when members started dying. We were killed quickly… sometimes quietly, and sometimes quite spectacularly, but all in a very short period of time. Our handlers were disappearing, too. The project was obviously being scrubbed, and they needed to get rid of the remaining proof that it had ever existed.

"By the time I figured out how complete the destruction was becoming, there was nothing to be done but disappear. So I ran. December, 1990. I tried to find the others I knew of in the program; they were all dead. I tracked down leads, I tried to contact…" Red trailed off and his eyes squeezed closed with a look of anguish. "They were all dead," he repeated, his voice steady. "Everyone who knew what I'd been ordered to do; what _any_ of us had been working on… everyone associated with the unit or program, in half a dozen countries. All dead."

Liz was breathless. "Did anyone come after _you_?"

"Yes." Red's answer was cold as he looked Liz in the eye. She blinked first, looking away. She could only imagine what happened to those sent to kill Raymond Reddington. Especially during a time when he was friendless, desperate, and alone.

"Eventually I realized I needed an identity. I chose to keep my name, and slipped back into the last cover I'd had: a fixer. A man who knew people, who could make connections and introductions. A _concierge _of sorts, you might say, for the corrupt and illicit people of the world." He gave a self-deprecating smile.

"You left your family," Liz noted. "You did that to keep them safe."

"The government, not knowing that they themselves had given me the tools and funding to become the man I was pretending to be, believed my cover so whole-heartedly that they put my family into witness protection. To save them from _me_." Red took another drink from the glass of wine he'd been swirling absently. "It was exactly where I needed them to be, given my situation, so I never tried to contact them. I left them, safe, where they were, and I let them believe the lies the government told them about me." Red's deep voice was softer and sadder than Liz had ever heard it. "Eventually I came to find out that whoever… _deleted_ the program I was a part of… decided that since I was the last man standing, I was a convenient patsy. The destruction of the unit and the deaths of all the members, handlers, and other government officials involved—it was all pinned squarely on my chest. The directors of the program—the highest ranking officials pulling the strings in each country—had so successfully created a double-blind set up that they didn't know that I'd even been a member of the program. They believed the same story they gave to my wife. As far as anyone left alive knew, I was a promising naval officer, being groomed for admiral, who abandoned his wife and daughter just before Christmas one year, and embraced a delinquent and deplorable life of crime. Those who were aware of the program figured I'd purposefully burst onto the scene with an excessively impressive take-down of their international black ops unit: an act designed to be the equivalent of beating the biggest inmate in the yard to a bloody pulp on your first day in prison."

Liz stared at Red, who watched her back carefully, trying to gauge her reaction. "Lizzie?" he finally asked. "I need to know if you believe me at this point in my story. Because this is the part where you enter into it."

Liz's heart was pounding, and she knew her breaths were coming faster than normal—something Red had likely already noticed. "Keep talking," she allowed, barely nodding her head.

Red sighed, and continued his backstory. "DARPA is a government agency responsible for the development of new technologies for military use. It was founded in 1958 in Arlington, Virginia. Around that same time, a man named Jack Kilby came up with a small, integrated circuit design that was the precursor to the modern-day microchip. Now, they started out large, and slow, but DARPA took Kilby's design and in the 1970s the LSI circuit was developed that allowed large amounts of information to be stored on a very small chip."

"And this is one of those chips?" Liz asked, nodding at the specimen bag.

"Yes."

"So what's on it?"

Red paused to drink his wine. "I was very good at my job, Lizzie. I've always had an _astounding_ memory. I learn names and favorite foods, I remember people's son's achievements, I know where their dogs are groomed and how often. I can be extremely likeable when I need to be, but by the same token I can be immensely _disagreeable_ if the situation calls for it. But above all else, I'm shrewd. Cagey. _Keen_, you might even say," he added, raising his eyebrows and taking another large sip of his wine.

Liz watched him put the glass back down and run his index finger slowly up and down one side of the stem, an unconscious motion that Liz found she couldn't tear her eyes away from. His deep voice was hypnotic, and the unbelievable story he was telling her made so much sense and filled out what she already believed about him so perfectly that she couldn't wait to hear the next sentence out of his mouth.

"I was wary of this program from the start. I could see us being a problem for the government if one of us ever talked. I could see future governments wanting to shut us down. And 'shutting us down' would realistically require silencing a good number of people. So from the very beginning, I saved things. Not much was written down, but the few pieces of hard evidence I could get my hands on, I made two copies of. For the first several years, when the unit was new, and the program was young, and the secrecy wasn't quite what it should've been yet… I put together insurance. Proof of who was involved, what had been done, and what my concerns regarding the program were." Red shook his head with a quiet chuckle, inclining it to the left as he smiled across the table at Liz. "You can just imagine how grateful I was to have made that little chip when things started hitting the fan in 1990."

"And when did you…" Liz shook her head, frowning. "I don't understand how it came to be in my wrist. You said this was the part of the story where I came in?"

Reddington nodded, and finished the last of his glass in a large gulp. "When you were four years old, your family home burned to the ground."

Liz took a sharp breath, and her left hand moved unconsciously to her right wrist, the fingers on her right hand curling in. She looked down in surprise when she touched gauze, instead of her scar, forgetting momentarily what had happened earlier that night. She looked back up at Red, who was pouring more deep red wine into his glass. He took another large swallow and put the glass down carefully on the table. Liz watched him as he shifted in his seat, leaning back and crossing his legs under the table. He cleared his throat, and looked at Liz warily.

"Lizzie… I set that fire."

…..:::::

There's more! It gets more Lizzingtony in the next chapter, which I'm hoping wraps this story up nicely. And it's a LONG one. Longest chapter I've ever written! Thank you for getting through so much dense backstory! I know I haven't addressed everything yet, but I have plans for the holes I've left, I think. Hold on to your "but what about [insert plot point here]?!" queries until after the next chapter, okay?

Thanks go to Psyrixx and Tirion for some of the military lingo (I knew what I wanted to say, but had no idea how to phrase it correctly: I literally started out with asking them about how "a secret-y squad of assassin people" might be described…it was pathetic). And yes, the dates for DARPA and the microchip stuff is all real (thanks Wikipedia!), as well as Jack Kilby. Real dude.

Please leave a review to let me know how this is going! And thank you for reading! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Your Scar

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of The Blacklist, and I don't make money off of this.

Author's note: References to information we got in 2x06 The Mombasa Cartel. Not spoilers, per se, but just allusions.

Part 4

…..:::::

"Lizzie…" Red started carefully. "I set that fire."

Liz took a deep breath, her lips parted in angry shock. "You…?" she breathed, her face anguished.

"Your father was someone I was…targeting. I'd been overseas for several months, and in order to maintain my cover as a naval officer I had to spend some time in the US, so they had me working on domestic projects and targets. Your father worked with the O'Briens, a home-grown terrorist husband and wife team looking to branch out and make a name for themselves in Europe. Your father had a talent for explosives, and kept an impressive collection of chemicals in the garage. He'd built a bomb that week and delivered it to his employers. I intercepted it and killed the couple. Your father was the final…" Red trailed off and cleared his throat. He'd been staring down at his glass of wine, running his fingers the length of the stem, but he paused, and raised his eyes to Liz's.

She was biting her lip, and her eyes held barely restrained tears that hovered just above her lower lashes and caught the lamp light, making her eyes shine. Her expression begged Red not to tell her what she'd already figured out.

Red's deep voice that Liz usually found so riveting was little more than a gravelly whisper. "I killed him," he managed, before swallowing and shaking his head in apology. Liz closed her eyes and the tears she'd been willing not to fall escaped down her cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away, but when she opened her eyes again, she covered her mouth with one hand and turned her face toward the window, her eyes roving over the long, white curtains as if searching desperately for something comforting, hidden in their folds. Red cleared his throat again, trying to finish his confession. "I left him in the garage, and set the fire to conceal the crime scene and destroy any evidence I may have left behind. It was a plausible accident; your father wasn't careful with the way he stored his chemicals."

Liz pushed back from the table and looked around the room desperately, searching for her things, unable to sit and listen to Raymond Reddington admit to murdering one of her fathers for a second time. Remembering that the jacket she was looking for had been ruined and thrown in a dumpster downstairs, she spun on her heels and strode toward the door.

Reddington stood and followed her. "You and your mother weren't supposed to be there, Lizzie, I didn't know you were in the house," he continued quickly. "Your mother had gotten drunk and passed out in the bathroom, and when I realized her car was still parked down the street, I ran inside—" Liz reached the door, and she paused, her partially numb right hand fumbling with the doorknob. Just as she switched to her left and twisted the handle to pull it open, Red caught up to her and with a quick, firm hand he pushed the door closed again.

Liz leaned her forehead against the door, and took several shuddering breaths, trying to calm down, her left hand on the knob, her traitorous right hand held protectively across her abdomen. Red's palm remained pressed against the door next to her, and she turned her head to the side against the wood to stare at the arm he had braced against her only escape route.

"I ran inside," Red said quietly, standing close, but careful not to touch any part of her. "I ran into a burning building, and I picked you up, and I carried you back out."

"And my mother?" Liz asked, attempting to keep her voice steady, but failing.

"The fire was… _advanced_ by the time I got to you. I wrapped you in a blanket to keep you safe from the flames, but…" Red trailed off and started again. "It's not like anything I was wearing was fire-proof. A cabinet collapsed forward on us, and I… I was injured. It was… difficult to get just the two of us outside. I was unable to get back in to search for your mother, and with the burns I sustained I probably wouldn't have been able to carry her out, anyway," he finished quietly.

Liz turned slowly to face Reddington, pressing her back against the door, noting that they had returned to the same position they'd been in just hours before in the alleyway. "Burns," she repeated, shaking her head. "You don't have any burn scars."

Red lifted his hand from the door and with quick fingers unbuttoned his vest and the top three buttons of his shirt. He watched Liz's face flush slightly as he worked. He turned to the side, angling his head away from her, and tugged at his collar, pulling his shirt out to expose his left shoulder and the scars that covered it.

Liz's breath caught, and her hand raised, unbidden, as if to touch him. She paused, her hand hovering inches from Red's shoulder. "I don't lie to you, Lizzie," he said quietly before turning his head back in her direction. He shrugged the shirt back over his shoulder, and buttoned it again, leaving the vest open. Watching her carefully, Red took three slow, tentative steps backward, allowing Liz the space to either open the door to leave, or return to the main room of the apartment. "You've asked me to tell you my secrets; tonight you're getting all of them. Stay, so I can finish this." Reddington extended an arm in the direction of the couch and chairs. "Please stay."

Something about the entreating tone in the usually unflappable Raymond Reddington's voice struck Liz, and she nodded numbly as she pushed off from the door and returned slowly to her original position on the couch. She perched lightly on the edge of the seat, however, as if ready to stand and flee at a moment's notice.

Red gave her a moment before he followed her, choosing an arm chair across from her rather than joining her on the couch. She noticed his unwillingness to invade her personal space, and wondered whether it was for her comfort, or his.

"You still haven't told me how the chip ended up in my wrist," Liz prompted after a moment, somewhat stiffly. She felt drained, and wasn't sure she even wanted any more information from this man. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Reddington nodded. "The blanket I had you wrapped in kept you from any serious harm from the fire, but in the confusion… the debris… I admit I put you down relatively roughly once we were clear of the house. I had to get my jacket off as quickly as possible, and you fell forward… you sliced your wrist open on a piece of scrap metal. That's not a burn scar, Lizzie. That was a very deep cut."

Liz looked down at the bandage again, as if she could see the history of the scar through the gauze.

"I didn't know what to do with you," Reddington admitted, continuing his story. "So I drove through the night, and I took you to my home. I gave you to my wife, and told her to hide you, and protect you."

Liz's head snapped up. "Naomi Hyland and I had met before." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Reddington said. "You stayed with her and my daughter Jennifer for five weeks at our cabin in Maryland."

"The same cabin you were hiding her in—the cabin I found her in…?"

"The same."

"Does she know that I was that little girl?" Liz asked.

"Yes."

"And she didn't say anything…?" Liz said, amazed at the level of devotion this man could inspire, even in people he had wronged, people who hated him.

Reddington didn't respond. After a long pause, he took a deep breath and let it out quickly. "I had just had two of those chips made," he said, gesturing vaguely toward the table they had vacated. "One I kept in a safe deposit box in Europe. The other I had hidden in the cabin while I looked for a better location. After I was released from the hospital, the day before I took you to Sam, I redressed your hand. You'd gotten an infection, and kept—" Red have a small huff of a reminiscent laugh, accompanied by a fleeting smile, "—removing your bandage and playing in the dirt outside. It took a long time to heal; probably why the scar ended up so prominent." Red frowned and crossed his legs, the smile completely gone. "Redressing your wrist involved packing your wound with gauze… and I figured… what better hiding place for my information than a little girl, wholly unconnected with my life, and who was about to be given to a good man, who I knew would take care of her?"

Red looked down at his hands, his shoulders slumped. Liz could tell he was truly ashamed, and knew it must have taken incredible courage and self-sacrifice on his part to confess all of this. His face was desolate when he lifted his eyes to hers again. But his repentant expression couldn't erase the growing, gnawing feeling in her gut. She wasn't special. She was convenient. A vessel. A hiding place. He had valued the chip, not her.

Liz felt the sting of betrayal flushing her cheeks. "You told me once that nothing could be worse than losing me. What you really meant was that nothing could be worse than losing _that._ Your _information. Y_our _proof_." Liz spat the last words as if they were dirty, stabbing a finger in the direction of the plastic bag behind her on the table.

"No," Red maintained, his voice laden with more vehemence and emotion than Liz had ever seen him express. "_No_, that is_ not_—" Red broke off and closed his eyes, shaking his head. He clenched his jaw, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"You… you're not the only child I've saved in my life. In 1993 I found a young boy bound, tortured, and left for dead. Obviously a fundamentally different scenario, but I freely admit that prior to that moment with him it had never occurred to me that I'd done something reproachful, implanting that chip in your wrist. Realizing that someone, somewhere, had decided this boy was no longer of any use, and was therefore essentially a disposable piece of mission tech... I never should've used you as a _hiding place_. A child. A _human being_." Red shook his head and squinted at Liz with no small measure of humiliation. "Shame on me," he said in a low, quiet voice.

As much as Liz wanted to hold on to her anger, to boil in it until her skin peeled, Red's words and the raw guilt in his voice made her desperate grip on that anger slip an inch. His eyes implored her to understand, though she knew if the tables were turned he would never be capable of it.

"If someone else—Berlin, for instance—had used me this way? What would you do?" she asked in a low, controlled voice.

Red answered immediately, and without hesitation. "I would hunt him down and shoot him like a dog in the street, without a second thought."

"So you can see why I'm having trouble with the phrase, 'That's okay, Red, I forgive you' right now?"

Reddington didn't answer her, he just bobbed his head, his eyes directed, unfocused, toward the white curtains pulled across the suite's windows. His demeanor was suddenly the most subdued Liz had ever seen from him, as if he had already accepted the fact that this was the end.

Liz shook her, head, confused. "Why leave it in me, then? Why didn't you just trade for the information as soon as you turned yourself in? They would have x-rayed my arm to verify your story, and it would've been simple enough to remove. And then you'd have been cleared. Free. You wouldn't have had to spend the last year tracking down other criminals, working with agents who distrust and despise you and what they think you stand for."

"It's much more complicated than that, Lizzie. If the first thing you learned about me after reading my file was that I had used you as a child the way that I did, would you have ever wanted to speak to me again? No. I needed you to get to know me, while at the same time keeping the FBI believing that I was Raymond Reddington, Number Four on their most wanted list. In order for them to want work with me, I had to remain a criminal. In order for _you_ to want to work with me, I had to prove I was a good man. If I strayed too far in either direction, one of you would have dropped me. So I played the criminal, and I just had to hope you noticed the times that I showed you pieces of myself," Red squinted at Liz, "through the cracks."

"You didn't need to get to know me, Red. We've already established: I was your hiding place. The chip was of value; I wasn't. Why did I need to spend time with you? In fact," Liz said, throwing her hands up in frustration, "why didn't you just come cut it out of my arm one night? Why leave it in there so long in the first place?"

"I had a second copy. In 1992 I took that chip to a man named Alan Fitch, who was the head of the US branch of my unit. It took the better part of two years for me to track down that piece of information, and by the time I was able to meet with him, he saw my chip and information as nothing more than blackmail. He figured my story of being one of the operatives he had presided over was an intricate web of lies, and that my goal was to infiltrate the US government to carry out some undoubtedly nefarious plan… Since I had nothing recent to prove myself innocent of the multiple murders in 1990, I opted for self-preservation, and accepted his offer of a blackmail scenario. I gave him the chip, and told him I had a second copy, which would be released in the event of my death. I also explained that as time went on, I would be collecting additional information, and his name along with any others I could connect to the unit would be very publicly linked to every high-profile assassination I had been privy to in my years of service.

"And this is why you had to remain safe. You had to remain secret. I knew Fitch would use all of his considerable influence and political weight to try to locate that second chip. If any one of a dozen agencies or private operatives had ever found out what you had in your wrist, someone would have snuck through your bedroom window as you slept, and your arm would've been chopped off without a second's hesitation."

Liz swallowed, an anguished look on her face. She looked down at the bandage around her wrist, trying to imagine someone capable of mutilating a person in order to obtain information…and then immediately realized that was the same type of man willing to mutilate a child to _conceal_ information. The type of man sitting in front of her now. The bandage swam in front of her as new tears threatened to fall. She blinked them away angrily.

Red watched her emotions swing from fear and horror back to anger, and was quick to progress with his story, hoping to retain her attention with continued momentum. "So you stayed hidden with Sam. And I watched you. And I protected my secrets. Which became _your_ secrets, the longer you kept them for me. And then one day I realized if you were threatened… Suddenly I wasn't as worried about someone coming after you to find the _information_. I just worried about someone coming after _you_. _Period_.

"I figured when you went into law enforcement… what a perfect way to protect you while also allowing you to _see_ me. To _know_ me. I could turn myself over as a criminal informant, and the deplorable people I had spent the last twenty years with could be my bargaining chip. I could continue the work I began when I first joined Fitch's program, only this time I'd be pulling the strings. I'd choose the targets. I'd know if they deserved the hell-fire I could rain down on them or not."

"You've always seemed to be three steps ahead," Liz wondered aloud.

"Sometimes, Lizzie, if it appears someone is ahead of you, it is only because stumbling can move you forward faster than taking measured steps does."

Liz sighed, shaking her head. "So what do we do with your information now? Hmm? Turn it in to Cooper? Get your name cleared? He'll ask how we got it; do we tell him where it came from?"

"No, Lizzie, we never tell _anyone_ where it came from. You would still be in danger from the people who would assume you _knew_ what was on that," Reddington said, nodding at the small plastic bag on the table. "They would also assume you knew more, and they would come for you. Professionally, it would irreparably hurt your standing at the FBI if they thought you had been willfully withholding evidence from them this entire time. Because that_ is_ what they will assume. Not to mention that when the truth about the project comes to light, you'll want to be as far from this as possible. I will be bringing down some very powerful people in our government and in others. They'll fight back." Red looked resignedly at Liz. "And now they know I have a weakness."

Red watched Liz stand and walk back to the table, where she picked up the plastic bag and held it up to examine the chip that had been a part of her for so many years. She reached down and picked up Red's glass of wine, and without asking permission, took a long sip.

Red noted this act of familiarity—of intimacy—with a flutter of hope before continuing. "When we first met last year, on our first case, you—quite correctly—noticed that I didn't have…. _things_… that were important to me. And therefore I made it difficult for people to find ways to exploit me." Red inclined his head at Liz. "Except for you. You realized immediately that I needed _you_. And that did scare me." He shook his head absently. "Now being _without_ you is the more frightening option. Because, honestly," Red continued, squinting as he rose from his chair to pace the far side of the room slowly, "how long can a man run on survival alone? If nothing is truly important to you, how do you ascertain value? Worth? How can _anything_ continue to be worthwhile, worth doing? What joy can there be in your life? Fine wine, expensive ties, and 1500 thread count sheets can only sustain a man for so long.

"This all began with me needing insurance, and striving to survive long enough to clear my name, and then…" Reddington raised his eyebrows and paused, facing Liz. "…and then _you_."

"And then me," Liz agreed, somewhat breathless. She felt her heart hammering in her chest, so fast it was almost uncomfortable. She put down the plastic bag and the glass of wine, and turned toward Red, who had resumed his pacing. "You followed my life for years… watched me, learned everything about me…" Ignoring her internal filter and all the red flags her mind threw out, she asked, "Do you think you're in love with me, Red?"

"Do I '_think'_…?" Reddington barked a quick laugh, barely a pause in his slow and steady gait across the room. "What a wonderful way to marginalize any emotions I have for you, Lizzie. A splendid rewording to take the potential force out of my answer. If I say yes, then it's akin to me saying, 'no, I don't love you, I just _think_ I do'."

When he didn't get a response, Red looked over his shoulder at Liz to find a pleading look on her flushed face, as if she were begging him to answer the real question. The hard question. The question she couldn't ask, but was desperate for an answer to. He sighed, and held her gaze for a long moment before giving a single, sharp nod. "I've loved you for years, Lizzie. Of course I do."

Red watched Liz's chest rise with her sharp inhale of breath. Her lips parted, but she said nothing, just turned back to look down at the table, unable to hold Red's gaze. Her eyes darted over the table top as if it could tell her how to stop her head from spinning. How to keep her stomach from turning. How to steady her legs. She gripped the back of the chair she stood next to, her knuckles white.

"And so," Red continued, resuming his pacing without taking his eyes from Liz's form, "what is a man supposed to do? When he falls in love with someone who is so important to his life, but she doesn't know he exists? I had several options, but only one I could live with. I needed the chip, so I couldn't just leave you to your life." Red rounded the far armchair. "There was a selfish element of self-preservation there. And I couldn't bear the thought of taking the chip from you, and having you believe the worst of me for the rest of your life. I needed a chance—however small—of you looking at me one day and seeing a man you trusted." He walked slowly past the couch, toward the table. "I needed hope. Because without you—my one, important, valuable thing…" Red came to a stop, standing directly behind Liz. "…what was the point of any of it?"

Liz didn't turn around, though she could practically feel his stare boring into the back of her.

"I'm not going anywhere," Red promised. "And I'm not asking for anything. Nothing other than to continue to be in your life. In whatever capacity you'll allow."

At this, Liz turned slowly to face him. "In whatever capacity…" She reached out and pinned the free edge of his open vest between the middle and index finger of her left hand, and slowly followed the seam down, running the fabric between her fingers.

"…you'll allow," Red finished for her, watching her hand's progress with baited breath.

Liz dropped the bottom edge of his vest and moved her hand back up toward his face. She paused as she had when she'd reached for his scars, her hand hovering in mid-air, inches from his cheek. Red held incredibly still, as if he were afraid any movement would make her disappear with less than a whisper. He searched her eyes, which remained fixed on her own hand, as if its movement and current position perplexed her somehow.

After an agonizingly long moment, Red made a defeated sound in the back of his throat and took a single step forward, bringing his face to Liz's palm. His eyes closed and he let out a low breath that she felt hot against her wrist. Her fingers moved slightly, curling against his ear and the skin of his neck just underneath and he panted, making Liz bite down on her lower lip in response to the sound. Red turned his face into her hand, and pressed a single, strong, almost desperate kiss into her palm. He lingered there for another brief moment, his eyes still closed, his breaths coming shallow and fast against the hollow of her hand, before stepping back, a tormented look furrowing his brow, as if pulling himself away from her was physically painful. He opened his eyes to meet Liz's, which were already locked on his face. She curled her left hand in against her chest.

Red took another step back and gave a small shrug, as if apologizing silently. "Well," he finally said, his voice rasping. "I think that's everything." He spread his hands out in a gesture of surrender. "I have nothing else to tell."

Red watched her unmoving form, feeling simultaneously petrified, and utterly weightless. The secrets that he'd been keeping had been suffocating him, and he hadn't realized how heavy they had been until he didn't have them anymore. But the loss of their weight left him feeling empty, almost hollow, and the longer Liz stayed silent, the more profound his sense of dread became.

After what felt like an age, Liz turned without a word, and walked toward the door. Red's chest squeezed in panic, but he didn't move, and he said nothing as he watched her walk away from him.

Liz arrived at the door and reached out with her left hand, her fingers closing around the deadbolt. After a moment's hesitation, she threw the deadbolt closed and paused to toe off her shoes in the entryway before she turned around and stepped slowly back into the room, her arms folded across her chest. Red's gaze was focused on the abandoned shoes.

"You haven't asked me for much of anything tonight," Liz noted.

"No," Red answered, still not looking at her.

"You haven't asked for forgiveness… you _did _mention you wanted my trust."

Red finally lifted his eyes to Liz. "I've found those aren't things given based solely on request."

"You haven't even asked me the way _I_ feel about _you_."

Red sighed. "I'm a practical man, Lizzie. I harbor no unrealistic ideas about your feelings for me. At best, you care about my well-being and safety and consider me a friend, possibly even someone you truly trust. At worst, you'll continue working with me because it's your _job_, and you'll _tolerate_ the man who confessed to many things tonight, some of them… truly terrible," he finished, his voice deep and quiet.

Liz nodded in agreement as she walked back to the couch and sat, tilting to one side and bringing her feet up onto the cushion next to her, her knees swept to the side. "I dreamed about you again recently," she said matter-of-factly as she shifted to get comfortable, without segue.

"'Again'?" The single word came from behind her, a note of surprise in it, but she didn't look up immediately.

"Mmm. It's become a relatively regular occurrence," Liz said. She twisted around to look at Red. "You've done a lot of talking tonight. Would you sit down and give me a chance to tell _you _something?"

After a beat, Reddington moved to collect his wine glass from where Liz had left it on the table, rounded the end of the couch, and eased down into the far corner of cushions. He said nothing, but extended his free hand in an open gesture at her, as if indicating she was free to continue; he was listening.

Liz nodded. "I dream about you. Coming to my hotel room. Sometimes you save me from someone, sometimes you're there because you need to tell me something," she explained, regarding him evenly. "You're always completely dressed. Suit, tie, jacket, hat. Most of the time you're even armed." Liz leaned toward Red and gently took the glass of wine from his hand. "Since you're not drinking this…?" she raised her eyebrows and took a sip, retreating to lean back against the arm rest. She swallowed before continuing, "In the dream you always wake me up. I'm in pajamas, an old shirt… sometimes nothing at all."

Red blinked several times, his eyes dropping from Liz's face to the light upholstery of the unoccupied third of the couch between them. His jaw clenched.

"The point is," Liz said, placing the glass on the coffee table in front of them, "tonight you revealed a lot. About your life, your past, the way you feel about me. I appreciate your candor, and I know it has to be terrifying you right now, thinking you've shown me all your cards. I'm sure you feel vulnerable and exposed. But think about my dream, Red. When I'm not awake, when my subconscious mind is inventing scenarios based on my perceptions of my current world, it creates a scene where _I'm_ vulnerable and exposed. You're completely covered, in a suit…like armor…standing over me with a gun. And I'm empty-handed, in bed, with nothing." Liz shifted to lean in Red's direction, edging closer to where he sat with one arm extended along the back of the couch. "Since we started working together, you've known everything about me… more than I knew about myself. Which could have been frightening. _Should_ have been." Liz shook her head. "But I'm never frightened in my dream."

"And what happens next?" Red asked in a low voice. "In your dream."

"Nothing ever happens," Liz answered honestly. "You're too well-protected. Too covered up and inaccessible. You never take off your hat; you never put down your gun."

Red gave a brief attempt at a smile. "If you think admitting to dreaming of me a few times—fully clothed, I might add—is on par with my confessions tonight, you're—"

Liz shook her head. "Okay, let me tell you about stop lights," she said firmly. "I notice when they're red now. I mean, I've always known when they were indicating I should stop, but now I notice the _color_. I was in someone's home the other day, and they had a bowl full of apples, and I thought how beautiful the arrangement was. The apples were all the most wonderful, deep color of red. I passed a little girl at a gumball machine on the street, and I noticed as it ran down the ramp into her hand that it was a _red_ one. I don't think I would have paid any attention to the color if it had been a yellow gumball. Or green. It would have just been a gumball," Liz said with a shrug, her eyes intense. "There's a red Chevy Silverado that always parks in front of the vending machine three doors down from my room at the motel," she said, beginning to hold up her fingers one at a time as she made her list. "Samar wore a red blouse on Thursday. Aram's addicted to Big Red gum and always has a few packets in his top right desk drawer. I notice when someone is drinking a Coke, but the can won't register with me if it's some other drink. I now find myself thinking red flowers are more beautiful than yellow, or white." Liz crawled closer across the couch. "You've literally changed the way I see the colors in my world, Red. That's how aware of you my mind is."

Red shook his head, and let out a breath, "Lizzie—"

"And _God_, I love how you say my name," she interrupted, closing her eyes and rolling her head to the side. "I could listen to you read the _phone book_, and I think it would still be seductive; your voice is _criminal_, you know that-?"

Liz stopped talking abruptly as Red's hand wound around the back of her neck, and he pulled her to him, the rest of her sentence erased by his mouth on hers. He kissed her with an urgency that left her breathless, and she immediately pushed up from her position next to Red and swung a leg over his lap, straddling him without her lips leaving his. Red's other arm wrapped around her waist, and with his palm flat on the small of her back, he pulled her hips closer to him. She broke away, breathing hard, and he moved his lips to her neck, finally allowing himself contact where he had hovered during their charade in the alleyway hours before. Liz reveled in the feel of it for a moment before gripping the fabric of his collar, attempting to hold his head still so she could recapture his mouth with hers—

"Damn it!" Liz swore, gasping as pain lanced through her right wrist. Red's hands immediately lifted from her, and he pulled back, concerned. Breathing heavily, Liz tentatively flexed her fingers, and the sharp ache flared again. She hissed in frustration, and Red sighed, leaning his head forward onto Liz's shoulder briefly before turning his attention to her hand.

"The local anesthetic is wearing off," he said, shaking his head. "This is going to get more painful as the night wears on, I'm afraid, but I have some pain killers in the bathroom that should—"

"Just Tylenol, if you've got it," Liz interrupted. She sighed. "Sorry…"

Red looked up at her with a wistful smile. "No apologizing, Lizzie," he corrected her. "And considering all of the revelations tonight, it's probably a good thing that… _this_…" he indicated the two of them with a wave of one hand, "slowed down… for the time being."

Liz nodded, but still flashed Red a devilish grin.

Red shook his head in amazement. "Your smile… it alone can make my day." He gazed at her for another moment before patting her thigh. "Up," he ordered. "Let me get you something for your wrist."

Liz moved off of Red with a pout and a groan, and he stood to head into the bathroom.

"Red?"

"Mmm?" he said, pausing in the doorway to the bedroom.

"If I promise to take the couch, can I stay here tonight?" Liz asked.

Red smiled at her. "You'll take the bed; I'll take the couch. And yes, of course you can."

By the time Red found the bottle of Tylenol and walked back into his bedroom with a glass of water, he found Liz tucked under his blankets. He walked to her side of the bed and silently offered her two pills and the glass, which she took. He set the empty glass back down on the night stand, and leaned over to press a kiss into her hair. "Sweet dreams," he murmured.

As he straightened up to leave, Liz caught his hand. "Stay," she said quietly. "I promise I'll behave, but neither of us should have to sleep on that couch tonight. Stay," she insisted.

Red waited several beats before nodding. He shed his vest as he walked across the room to the light switch, and began unbuttoning his shirt. The room plunged into darkness, and after another moment Liz felt the blankets tug as Red got in to bed behind her. She twisted, turning to face him.

"Your voice really should be illegal, you know," she whispered conspiratorially.

"Is that so?" The amused response rumbled out from the darkness in front of Liz, and she closed her eyes with a smile.

"_God_, it's like a jaguar got trapped in a cello or something…"

Red chuckled, and after several minutes, Liz's breathing became deep and even. Red lay, listening to the soft sounds coming from the pillow next to him for a long time before finally drifting off himself, sleeping better than he had in years.

…..:::::

And that's all for this one! Gotta say, it turned out WAY different than originally planned.

My apologies to those still hoping for actual sex. This is as close as you're likely to get with me. And I won't even admit to how long those five damned sentences took me to write. ;)

Also, the description of his voice was unapologetically stolen from a London magazine. They used the phrase in reference to Benedict Cumberbatch, but I find it fitting for James Spader, too. So I stole it. ;)

Review! Please! They seriously make my day. I grin like a madwoman each time I get one. Best way to easily improve a fellow human being's day. :)


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